Monday, March 31, 2008

How do you like her new hardware? Do you like her spiffy pink with silver glitter ear molds?

Her appointment was at 3pm today. When we put the first hearing aid in and Drew said something she got all calm and quiet. We wondered if she heard him. When we got both of them in Drew was talking to her again and she smiled. BUT Drew had touched his head to her head so we don't know if she smiled because she heard him or because Drew touched heads with her (which always makes her smile).

The audiologist had to keep lowering the sound in the hearing aides because they kept giving back all kinds of interference. She said she had to lower them more than she had wanted to. She felt this was because of the ear molds. She was not happy with the ones we got. She did not think they were long enough for her ear canal. This also causes some more whistling than usual. We'll use these ear molds for the next week or so but the audiologist made new molds today that we'll get in next week. Hopefully she can set them louder and we will have less whistling.

We took the hearing aides off for the ride home but put them back in when we got home. I didn't see her show much response, but Drew thinks she is hearing him. She does not turn and look at you when you speak to her. I had to pump so I was out of the room for awhile so Drew spent a lot more time with her in them. We finally took them out because they were whistling a good bit.

We will start slowly with them. Some babies will be pretty fussy because they are not used to all the noise. She seemed to do pretty well with them. We will work up to wearing them all day everyday. She does not wear them when she is napping or down for the night. Since she is technically only 4 1/2 months old, sleeping still takes up the large majority of her day. Hopefully each day we will see more and more of a response from her.

This is Lindy getting a new ear mold made. They squirt this stuff in that is like a soft putty. It stiffens up in the exact shape of her ear.

This is when we put the first hearing aid in. She wasn't too happy!Right after we turned the hearing aid on. Did she hear Drew???Back at home with both hearing aides in. You can't even see them from the front!Another view of the hearing aides. These are actually loaner hearing aides we are using right now. The hearing aides we order for her will actually be smaller.

Friday, March 28, 2008

My mom, a.k.a Nana, has been here for a few days this week. She flew out today and we miss her already. We have loved the extra help and hate that my parents live so far away.

It has been a beautiful week in NC. We've had such pretty spring days. Too bad it is going to get a little cooler this weekend.

We had a good week. Lindy had occupational therapy on Monday and she did well. The therapist definitely had her tracking a toy from side to side, so that was exciting to see.

Lindy had her follow-up eye exam on Wednesday. Her eyes seem to have gotten worse. She definitely followed a little toy for the ophthalmologist, which he seemed very pleased with. We have gone ahead and ordered her glasses. It will take 3-6 weeks for them to come in. They will look like this: We ordered her the light pink version though. Can you imagine my little girl in those glasses? I can't!! Should be interesting trying to keep them on her face! I can't wait to see how she acts with the glasses on. Although her prescription seems to have gotten worse, we feel she is seeing so much better. She seems to look around so much more and can focus on toys and our faces now.

Will had his last Synagis (for RSV) shot on Thursday. He cried less this time than last month. We saw another doctor and he checked out his breathing issues again. I put him on his stomach and let him get a good listen to the wheezing noise we hear. He definitely heard it as well. He couldn't find anything wrong though. He said to watch it and if it gets worse they can refer us to an ear, nose, and throat doctor who can check out his airway. He does not make the noise when he is at rest which is comforting to me; just when he gets worked up and is exerting energy.

Not too much other exciting news this week. We have raised our March for Babies goal again as we have received more donations!! We are so thankful that our friends and family have supported us in our cause. Unfortunately we had to deal with extreme prematurity and infant death. We want to do our small part to help prevent others from having to deal with the same issues. We need to thank:

Ken and CarolynMyra and BrianHarold and WilmaGreg and SloanYun Lan and SteveJennieBob and LibLarry and Linda

And finally, some recent pictures for your viewing pleasure.

This has become one of my favorite pictures of Lindy. She just looks so cute in her dress and shoes and the smile is one of the most precious things in the world to me!

The "Stud Muffin" Get it????

The shirt says it all.

Is this not a darn fine looking boy? He's gorgeous!

A few more fun shots with Nana. Lindy sure is checking her out!

Nana and Will spent a good bit of time talking about the important things in life. Milk, poopy diapers, and the 2008 presidential election. Nana was saying, "Will, you are crazy if you think Hillary will get the nomination."

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Friday, March 21, 2008

Has your TV been on basketball for the past two days like at our house? There were finally some good upset games today. Those are always the best. Not good for your brackets but fun to watch.

Our week without appointments turned into a week with two appointments. The first came on Wednesday; I took Will into the pediatrician. For the past couple weeks or so we have noticed him doing this wheezing/breathing harder thing sometimes throughout the day. I first noticed it when he was doing tummy time. It seems to have increased to other times throughout the day now too. I called the nurse's line on Tuesday afternoon and after talking with her she said to bring him on in and made us an appointment with our doctor at 9:15am. So I go the pediatrician, 30 minutes away, on Wednesday, and they tell me the appointment was scheduled for Thursday at 9:15am. No one told me that! Anyway, since we were there they let us see another doctor that we'd never seen before. He couldn't find anything wrong with him. Everything sounded good and checked out fine. I still wish we'd have seen our doctor but didn't feel like driving back in the next day. We'll just keep an eye on it.

The second appointment was for Lindy. We went on Thursday and talked with the audiologist. We got her first ear molds made for her hearing aides. She kind of talked to us about hearing aides in general and then made the molds. The hearing aid will be behind her ear and then there is a piece that goes in her ear. They make a mold of the inside of the ear for this piece. They have to send them away to get the piece made and that can take two weeks. We'll go back in to learn how to use the hearing aides when the molds come back in. The molds can come in about any color imaginable. You could get up to three colors swirled and then you could get glitter. Too many choices. We were faced with the choice of flesh colored so they would blend in or with fun colors. We (okay, I did, Drew was no help) ended up with pink and silver glitter! We figured we would try a fun color and see how we like it. Since babies grow quickly, we will probably be having many molds made. So if we hate the fun color then we can get flesh colored next time. We are going to be using loaner hearing aides for a little while until they can get their insurance issues figured out. When they do we will order her actual hearing aides and we'll have more choices about color. Fun fun!

We hope everyone has a wonderful Easter weekend. This will be a very low-key weekend for us since we are on house arrest. Drew of course has been busy with church activities this week and will be busy this weekend. I had a comment about having outfits for each holiday for the babies. If you know me well then you know I love to decorate my house for holidays. Now I have babies to decorate too. They asked if I had Easter outfits. Hmmm, what do you think? You'll have to check back Sunday to see if they have Easter outfits!

The latest pictures.

Sweet babies in sweet baby outfits.

Will has figured out how to roll from his back to his side. This is how I find him now during naps. He's so close to rolling all the way over but he hasn't made it yet. A spiffy new denim outfit. My cool baby with his collar and cords. "I think, therefore I am." I can't resist these smiles!! My two favorite guys!

We've done so well with our fundraising. We've both been blown away by all the support. We hope we can make our new goal! Thank you to:

Monday, March 17, 2008

Friday, March 14, 2008

Happy Weekend - doesn't the weekend start on Friday Night? I hope everyone had a good week. Ours has been a bit busy. We've had someone at our house every day this week except today. Some medical appointments and some friends visiting.

Monday we had occupational therapy come work with Lindy. She is doing well, nothing major to report.

Tuesday an old high school buddy of Drew's came to visit. We found out he had misunderstood something and originally thought we were pregnant with quintuplets. agagaga!! Thank goodness we weren't! Wednesday we had some good friends stop by and they are pregnant with twins! I hope we didn't scare them too much! Will put on a good pooping face performance (his face he makes when he is pooping, which is really funny) and then shot the poop out the diaper and up his back.

Thursday we had the home health nurse and social worker come by. They actually discharged Lindy from their services. This is a good thing, meaning she is doing so well, but we will miss seeing Kathy the nurse! We also enjoyed Melissa's visits, as well as Stacey's. I really miss the weight checks. Lindy weighed 10 pounds 15 ounces. Almost 11 pounds! We also threw Will up on the scale and he was 13 pounds 13.5 ounces. Both are growing well!

Thursday afternoon brought Chelle, our early intervention specialist and Susan, a teacher from the Governor Morehead Preschool program. This is a state program for children with vision impairments. They will do in-home visits with her that will help Lindy and teach us how to work and play with her. We did all paperwork Thursday. We are anxious for when she comes back in the beginning of April to start working with her.

Too many pictures to choose from so I'll just post a bunch!

Will is saying; "Mom, stop trying to make me learn to read like that 17 month old on the Today show we saw this week." No joke, the kid could read and has been doing it since she was 13 months!

Sweet sleeping baby.

Hey, I found another sweet sleeping baby.

Big stretches!! More big stretches.

Lindy's two favorite things in life are the ceiling fan in the den and her left hand. She could stare at them all day! I agree with her that it is a fine looking hand.

Sweet pajama clad cuties. I love little pj's!

Matching stripey babies. I think it looks like Lindy is pulling Will's hair. Looking at the camera. Our famous sideways pictures. So maybe famous is a strong word. This was too funny not to post. Looks like Will is bopping Lindy on the head!I've finally gotten a couple cute videos to post. I hope you enjoy them! One is Lindy playing with Daddy and the other is Will playing with Daddy. Lindy is so fun and cute when she smiles in response to us. She loves it when we kiss her neck, hands, and belly. Will has started this new scream thing. Sometimes he screams like a girl, just to make some noise!

We have some generous friends and family. I've had to raise our goal for March for Babies twice now! We never thought we'd get this much money! How exciting to think we are helping make sure other babies do not have to go through what Adam, Lindy and Will went through. Thank you to:

Sunday, March 9, 2008

We passed our inital goal thanks to the generosity of many people! How exciting that I had to increase our goal! More thanks go out to:

MichaelCallie and ChrisCarrie, Bryon, and AnnaWayne and PeggyGranny and GranddadKeith and KathyAmyNortheast District ClergyCarina

We hope everyone has had a good weekend. We are glad we do not live in Ohio, like my parents, who have had a nice March blizzard and have ended up with 15 inches of snow!

Our weekend has been pretty normal, like most other weekends. Except for losing an hour of sleep. That stinks. I think little Miss Lindy really missed her hour of sleep this morning. She was not so pleasant to be around while Daddy was at church. Fun times, fun times! Of course she was little Miss Sweetie when Daddy got home and fed her at 1pm! After a few good naps she has been back to her happier self.

Mr. Will had his first rice cereal experience yesterday and has done very well. It was almost a little anti climatic yesterday. He didn't make many faces and it didn't end up everywhere like I thought it would. Today I made it a little thicker and he made a few more faces and was a little messier with it but he did great. He opens his mouth when I'm coming with the spoon which I think is just about brilliant that he knows what to do! Such a smart boy!

Thursday, March 6, 2008

First off, THANK YOU to those who have already donated to the March for Babies! It is so exciting to receive emails alerting us of donations. We have already received over half our goal! How cool would it be to blow by that original goal!!

Thanks go to:Marc and AndreaPete and FrendaLynn (who also registered to walk with us!)Paulette and RonKatie, Will and familyDonna and familyLauree, Danny and family

We are also very excited to hear about some interest from our old church in Lincolnton, First UMC. Thanks Peggy for calling to talk about it and for getting FUMC interested in helping!

It has been a quiet week for appointments. Lindy had her only two appointments this morning. We met with the follow-up NICU clinic and then she got her monthly Synagis shot (for RSV). The neonatologist seemed pleased with Lindy's progress. She continues to have great weight gain. She was 10lbs 9oz at the pediatrician's office.

She had an echo cardiogram done in the middle of Feb. that I just learned the results of today. It showed mild pulmonary hypertension in her heart. Normal pressures are under 20 and hers was 30. He said extreme cases to worry about are 50-60. This unfortunately means we can't aggressively wean her oxygen requirements. She needs to continue to sat between 95-100 so that there is not any pressure on her heart. They scheduled another echo to be done in early April to see if this has gotten any better.

At the pediatrician's office I talked to the doctor about Will. He is drinking 35oz of milk and has lately seemed to still be hungry. We got the go ahead for a little rice cereal! Don't worry, you'll see pictures I'm sure! He continues to sleep well.

I had a first yesterday. I fed both babies at the same time. Normally I do one right after the other. I started feeding Lindy because she is generally the less patient one and Will went bananas! I ended up putting her down, getting his bottle and feeding Will in the Boppy and Lindy in my lap. Surprisingly they were patient when I had to stop and burp one or the other. We made it through and everyone got fed!

Can you believe the babes turned 7 months old? Time is flying!! Here are some pictures of the past week. Enjoy!

The first picture where both have been smiling! A feat I've been trying to conquer for awhile!

Lindy started up right next to Will but managed to work herself around sideways. We have to watch her, she tries to get off the play mat! Lindy's first skirt! Doesn't she look so sweet! Will's new favorite shirt. he he!! (This is for you nurse Sherri!) A sweet little outfit on Will. This was an afternoon of baby massages at the Southern Salon and Day Spa.

Must be nice! The sweetest frown I've ever seen! What a pair of fine looking youngins! I though they matched pretty well this day! An afternoon stroll we took one day in the backyard! It was 70F and too pretty to sit inside. Will seemed to enjoy it but Lindy wasn't so happy about it. I got her back inside and she let out a huge burp so she might have been in pain. We'll try again on another nice day. Me and my sweet babies!